Summer, summer, summertime produced a style on the Lake Erie Islands which couldn’t be cloned on any other coast.
Instead of showing up fashionably (for a far-a-way destination surrounded in freshwater) island tourists risked appearing initially tacky. They tore off of the ferries and private watercraft in their Cavs jerseys, t-shirts, tanks pullovers and most often — the 2016 NBA Champs hat.
Ballin’! Representin’ a city of champions!
“I did a shot with everyone I saw wearing this hat at Put-in-Bay,” one Middle Bass Island bartender exclaimed at the end of summer 2016.
The hat, the gear was everywhere on any given day or night and on any given island! An island worker from Uzbekistan, Farruxjon Sattorberdiyev, was given a championship chapeau to celebrate his end-of-the-season success. He took the Cleveland Pride and rallied the 13-hour, 6,500 mile trip to his home country wearing the wonder, that was once dubbed the “Mistake on the Lake”.
Make zero mistake about this, on Ohio’s North Coast, the fashion is: forget the Tommy Bahama, Red Rum, Vineyard Vines, or J. Crew and bring on the Cleveland Sports Teams.
Suddenly, allegiance isn’t designated just for the Cavs.
With The Tribe winning the pennant and entering the World Series this week as they take on the Cubs, Chief Wahoo is once again stylish reigniting a fashion code for Fall 2016.
Josie Koler is an award-winning journalist. She grew up in the western suburbs of Cleveland and had to be bribed by her mother to put on clothes which did not depict the Cleveland Browns or her beloved Cleveland Indians.
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